1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image-forming-device management system which includes a local network in which an agent device is connected with one or more image-forming devices, such as copiers or printers, as well as a management device carrying out remote management of the image-forming devices using Internet connection of the local network. The present invention further relates to an image-forming-device management method, an image-forming-device management program and a storage medium thereof.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conventional image-forming-device management system carries out maintenance management of one or more image-forming devices at the user locations by operation of a remote management device, located at a remote place, through a communication line such as a telephone line.
In performing the remote management using the connection by telephone, the communication cost increases. In order to reduce the communication cost, it is possible to perform remote management using the Internet connection that is made to the remote management device by the user on the local network side.
On the other hand, in local networks, such as corporate networks, there is the possibility that any third person has illegal access, through an external network, such as the Internet, to internal data and programs within the local networks. To avoid this, the firewall is provided in many local networks so that alteration, destruction, etc, may not be performed to the data and programs in the local networks.
If the conventional image-forming-device management system is applied to such a local network, it is difficult to carry out remote management of the image-forming devices in the local network from the remote management device through the Internet, by the presence of the firewall in the local network.
When connecting the remote management device with the image-forming device in the local network having the firewall provided therein using the Internet connection of the local network, direct transmission of a processing request from the management device to the image forming device is impossible in many cases by the presence of the firewall.
The firewall permits the transmission of a request from the user's local network to the Internet and the transmission of its response from the Internet to the local network. However, the firewall does not permit the transmission of a request from the Internet to the user's local network because of the function of the firewall to avoid illegal accessing.
A conceivable method to eliminate the above problem is to change the setting of the firewall such that only a request from the management device to the image-forming device may be passed through the firewall.
However, such change of the firewall setting raises the possibility of making the security level of the firewall lower and increasing the network administrator's burden.
Another conceivable method to eliminate the above problem is to utilize VPN (virtual private network) device that allows only a request from the management device to pass through the firewall to the image-forming device. However, it is necessary to increase the device cost greatly for the use of VPN device in the image-forming-device management system.
Therefore, because of the presence of the firewall, it is difficult for the conventional image-forming-device management system to carry out remote management of the image-forming device in the local network from the management device connected through external networks, such as the Internet, without increasing the device cost greatly.